Busy busy - but not so busy as OFSTED

The last few days have been rather hectic. The next few will probably be more so. I am clocking up well north of 1,000 miles of travelling over a ten-day period, which for somebody who generally never travels unless he has to, is quite a culture shock.

Having been in Wales, I missed all the seismic excitement over the publication of the long-awaited review of how not to write a report to develop Welsh devolution in a modern context. Having been busy, I couldn't be bothered to discuss anything to do with a Queen's Speech that I would describe as shadow boxing were it not an insult to all shadow boxers.

However, in a brief lull I am drawn back to the fray by a report in the Guardian. There is an awful lot going on in HE at the moment (apart from redundancies, mergers, funding cuts etc) and one of the things that has been mooted is the introduction of an inspectorate of universities. It is something to which I am implacably opposed for a variety of reasons (see here and here). I have also been against OFSTED itself, as an institution, because it seemed (and still seems) to be about empire-building and central control, and not about standards. While I don't necessarily buy in to the idea that standards have plummeted on OFSTED's watch, only a fool would suggest that they have risen. But then in an organization formerly run by the notorious Chris Woodentop (see here) what do you expect?

So I was thrilled and highly amused to see this absolute pasting of OFSTED in the bureaucrat's own newspaper this morning - as was the former teacher of my acquaintance who emailed it to me! In reality I think it just confirms what everyone with half a brain already knew - that OFSTED is badly managed, badly run, has no "vision" (I hate the word, but...) of how to improve standards, has a laughably inept teaching regime, and is fast making matters worse rather than better in its new areas of competence (to wit, social services) - if that were possible. Individually, I have known some very fine OFSTED inspectors, mostly newly-retired teachers who actually care about seeing what is going on and trying to help where there are problems. But they seem to be fighting a losing battle against the system they now have.

OFSTED is, however, more deeply flawed than that. It is philosophically flawed. Its belief is that everything will be rosy if only central control is enhanced. Of course, in theory this is possible. But that requires the right sort of central management and the right approach to enforcing control. Bizarrely, although supporters of an HE OFSTED say it would increase accountability in HE where there currently is none (which is fair to an extent - HE institutions are fairly insular) OFSTED, like the NHS, is accountable to just one person - the Secretary of State. And if there is a corrupt, incompetent or otherwise ineffectual SoS (as there is now) then OFSTED becomes a juggernaut of unaccountable bureaucracy - unlike local authority inspectors, who are at least accountable to the County Council (who also, of course, pay the direct bill for education). This means it can do what it likes - and what it has liked to do has often run flat counter to the best interests of education, causing the best teachers to quit in disgust and the worst to struggle on burdened by ever more paperwork and always slipping through the inspectors' net.

I can't help but feel this is one quango that is now really ripe for pruning. It has an annual budget of around £200 million (maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more - the 2007 figures are available on Tom Watson's website). That would be a nice little saving in an emergency budget come July 2010. Moreover it would guarantee David Cameron the votes of the entire teaching profession. I wonder if that will weigh in Michael Gove's mind at all?

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)

Continuing with the exploration of the four great 09/59 composers, I come to Felix Mendelssohn, known by a variety of names including Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Bartholdy-Mendelssohn and just Mendelssohn.

Mendelssohn was one of the greatest of the Romantic composers, skilled at composing opera, oratorio, organ music, chamber music, orchestral music and just about anything else with notes. He must surely be the most performed classical composer in this country at least, because for some reason that I must admit is outside my comprehension his rather twee wedding march from A Midsummer Night's Dream is the recessional of choice at four weddings in five.

He was of course controversial, not professionally but personally - because he was Jewish. In the years after his death he was frequently attacked by the anti-Semitic strands of German society - including Richard Wagner - an attitude that reached its apogee under a bloke with a funny moustache, who banned all Mendelssohn's works and offered prizes to those who would set the librettos to new music. Although I am not a fan of the Wedding March, it is gratifying to note that it has held up far better than any of these Nazi-inspired alternatives, not one of which is now considered worth performing.

He was a very frequent and popular visitor to Britain, visiting some 10 times between his first visit in 1829 and his death in 1847, staying for about two months on average. During this time he did a lot of conducting, including concerts for Victoria and Albert, who were great admirers of his work. He also edited English editions of the works of Handel and Bach, the latter of which, remarkable though it may seem now, was very little known in this country before his time. Mendelssohn was a strong proponent of both composers, having revived the St Matthew Passion for the first time in 79 years as part a partnership with actor Eduard Devrient . He is said to have commented, good-humouredly, "To think it took an actor and a Jew's son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!"

He worked in both London and also in Scotland, home of his friend and fellow composer John Thomson. The association with Scotland inspired two of his most celebrated pieces - Fingal's Cave (officially the Hebrides Overture) and the Scottish Symphony. I don't know the latter very well, but I have always loved the second movement of the former, with its wonderful, surging energy so reminiscent of the sea pounding against the rocks and into the caves it has hewn over time. I have to admit it makes me think of Wales rather than Scotland - but I suppose that is merely a matter of association. The sea and for that matter the caves are very similar in both places!

He died at the young age of 38 - being a composer was not a generous living for a man with a wife and five children, and many composers died young from overwork, among them Jeremiah Clarke, Purcell, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Long ago one of the country's leading conductors commented to me, when we were discussing Mendelssohn's last great work and surely his crowning glory, Elijah, "It killed him you know." The stresses and strains of preparing this huge work for performance, going through many revisions all of which Mendelssohn made himself, almost certainly exacerbated his ill-health and led to his early death.

But in this work, Mendelssohn created one of the truly great English oratorios - and despite the fact that he was German, it was definitely an English work, written in English and performed in Birmingham's Town Hall as part of the city's Festival of 1846. It remains highly popular with all choirs, professional and amateur, here and throughout the world - including in Germany. There are those who don't like it much - arguing that it is less varied and subtle than Messiah, less profound than The Creation, and almost as demanding in terms of volume as Verdi's Requiem (scarcely surprising as both were written with choirs of around 400 in mind). But no singing career is complete without it.

So resisting the very strong temptation to go with Fingal's Cave (here, if you're interested) I have picked out a chorus from Elijah to accompany this post. It's not the best sound quality I've ever heard, but for me it is the best of the choruses, displaying at once subtlety, variety, and the melodrama for which this oratorio is famous/infamous (delete as appropriate). "Behold, God the Lord Passed By" (and due to what I imagine careless oversight this choir do sing "passed" not passéd"). Here it is - I hope you enjoy it.

Next month - Handel. I am lining up two posts with his music - one the continuation of this series, and one containing something from Messiah for my last post on this blog. The first will be in early December, the last should be on Christmas Eve.

Standards at the Beeb are really slipping...

From a report on the final hustings of the leadership race:

But the winner will have to wait around a week after that before her or she is confirmed as head of the Welsh Assembly Government.

You couldn't make it up. Mind you, I still think Edwina Hart is going to win - so might it be a Freudian slip?

UPDATE: I see it's been altered to read "he or she." It's gratifying to know that I have that level of influence! :-)

Sadie's Tavern

I see from Iain Dale that Sadie Smith is calling "last orders."

In a way I can see where she is coming from. The next few months are likely to be times of great upheaval, but they will certainly not be fun for any supporter of Labour. In fact, in the spectacularly unlikely event of Jackie Ashley being right about something, the next twelve months could be the perfect time to be a Liberal Democrat. Or, of course, an Old-Labour diehard with a safe seat and an impeccably anti-Blair record, who may just find himself (and out of curiosity, has anyone else noticed how all the potential leaders of Labour are men?) leader.

I do not, of course, write from a left of centre perspective. I've never worked out what I am politically - probably on the libertarian left, with right-wing views on certain issues (notably social policy to do with marriage). And I have already publicly declared my support for the Conservatives at the next election. But I also find myself gradually drawing back from an interest in politics.

One of the commenters on Iain Dale's post mentioned that blogging is the perfect medium for opposition. This blog has mostly been aimed squarely at Labour - its corruption, incompetence, disregard for civil liberties, deliberate devastation of the national economy (and anything that happens from hereon in will almost certainly be designed to leave a poisoned legacy for an incoming government, because that is how this most tribal and selfish of Prime Ministers thinks). In six months or so, that government will be an ex-government. Indeed, there is reason to think that had it not been nailed to its perch by Peter Mandelson, it would be pushing up the daisies already.

Where I go from that politically I don't know. But where I go as a blogger is clear. This blog will be a face that doesn't fit any longer. I have several times considered closing it over the last year as a busy life took its toll on my postings - and hinted at my thinking in this post. I did toy with the idea of keeping it going but turning my attention to other matters. However, I find that doesn't work so well. This was a political blog at the start, it will be a political blog at the finish. And that finish is now approaching. When I close it down for Christmas, I will not be returning.

That does not mean I will be quitting blogging. I have already set up a new blog, using Wordpress, and have been running the two in parallel for quite a while. However, that is a blog about my professional research, and although I have left the door open for posts on other subjects (I especially mentioned politics, Christianity and music in the opening post) it won't really marry across from this one. I have considered cross-linking the two. However, the new one is written under my real name.

Very sadly, I know there is one reader of this blog who is a dangerous and unbalanced liar with a pathological hatred of anyone remotely successful, who has made a disastrous mess of his life, and who now spends his all too many idle hours trying to ruin other peoples' as well. I ran afoul of him when I pointed his failings out, something he did not like, and I am aware he intends to try and destroy me by means of a smear campaign if he can - indeed, he has already made a start in several posts on multiple websites, although he has quietened down recently. At the time, ironically, I did not realize how nasty a piece of work he was, assuming it was simply a matter of a grudge against an organization for which I certainly felt no sympathy, knowing rather more than he did about them. Further investigation has convinced me that his personal problems go deeper than that, but I have decided I want nothing more to do with him so I will not publish the information, or link his name to this post. Can I please stress that it is nobody I link to and nobody who currently comments on this blog (although he has become one of the most notorious trolls on Betsan's blog, under a weird pseudonym implying sympathy with the Taliban, who is regularly in trouble with the moderators).

As long as he does not know who I am, the danger to my future is minimal. However, in the febrile atmosphere of the CRB and the ISA, his allegations (all of which are false) despite his own terrible record, might do me serious damage if linked with my real identity. With hindsight, I should have steered well clear of him - does not the Bible tell us that "he who toucheth pitch shall be defiled"? But it's a bit late to worry about that now, and I have decided under all the circumstances I really cannot take the risk of revealing who I am. I feel that's terribly sad, because I have on occasion written things I regretted, or later found to be wrong, but I have never been ashamed of what I have written (my reasons for being anonymous in the first place are here). Where necessary, I have fronted up and retracted. But honesty of purpose is no longer good enough in Brown's Britain - we must all be Caesar's wife, and let free speech and free conscience go by the board.

My new blog does contain links to most of the blogs in my sidebar (certainly all the active ones) so I will still be keeping up with matters political and Welsh. Maybe some of you will work it out! I intend to leave the blog on the web until at least the next election - maybe beyond - to keep up with the latest posts through that supremely useful blogroll widget, which Wordpress doesn't seem to do. But it won't be further updated. Although I know most bloggers who retire are generally lured back in the end, I'm not retiring, merely switching my focus. So this truly will be an ex-blog, as Brown will be an ex-government.

I intend to use the last five weeks here constructively. I'm delighted that recently this blog appears to have risen in peoples' estimation, and I hope to keep the higher standard of writing I have been able to manage in the last six months going. I intend to comment on the new First Minister - and the old one. I will also do those other two music posts I promised, and possibly one on what I have learned about blogging from the last two years. I also hope to break 300 posts - at one time I thought that would be a good place to stop, but I may beat it. Or not. It doesn't matter much. This is post 287, so another 15 or 16 are possible, including the 7 I already have mapped out in my mind.

So after that prolonged bout of naval gazing, I will summarize by saying that this blog is winging its way to its conclusion, ahead of the Brown government (unless of course the rotten edifice collapses in the next six weeks). I'm hoping that the next six weeks will be a ball, as the first 116 have been. They will certainly be "interesting times".

Dudley/Metternich vs. Hague/Lellouche

This is the second time in two days I have posted on Europe. I hope I'm not obsessing about it.

To start with an anecdote. In about 1825, Lord Dudley, the British Ambassador to Vienna, was talking to Prince Metternich, the Austrian Chancellor. The conversation, which was in French, the European lingua franca of the time (hence the phrase) was along these lines:

Metternich: "I must compliment your Lordship on your command of French. You are the only Englishman who speaks it really well. Why, it is said that in Vienna even the common man speaks French better than the educated man in London."

Dudley: "That may well be. Your Highness should recall that Napoleon has not been twice in London to teach them."

That more brilliantly sums up the detached position of Britain in Europe than anything I could say - which will not of course stop me expanding on it! Of course our main interests lie in Europe. Because it is only 25 miles off the coast, far closer than any other place other than, depending on definition, Ireland, that has to be the case. That is why we have been involved in every European squabble, organisation, dispute and general malaise since AD 43 - the Roman Empire, the Saxon kingdoms, the Viking raiders, the Norman Empire, the Hundred Years War, the Reformation, the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress system of the 1820s, the Crimea, the First and Second World Wars, and now the EU. Like it or loathe it, just as Ireland's fate has reluctantly and often bloodily been bound up with England's (and I picked that word carefully), so ours is bound up with Europe.

At the same time, as was the case with Ireland, we are an island. No matter how you look at it, we are not geographically an integrated part of Europe. Because of that, there is always an air of detachment. While the continental countries became used to border warfare, invasion, repellation etc., we accustomed ourselves to the idea that we are insulated from the Continent's affairs, even though this idea is a fallacy. Since we developed a strong navy, we can protect ourselves from the worst consequences of them (invasion, loot, pillage, death, destruction - at least until the concept of the Blitz in the Second World War) not from the initiations and the wars that follow. Even so, this has allowed our constitution, identity and politics to develop in a radically different way from the rest of Europe. This idea of detachment has survived to the present day because of the continuing belief that we are a world power and a major world economy (both true to an extent) while Ireland or Iceland, spooked by their current weakness caused by their relatively smaller size, are keener on integration.

This is why there is at once a strong current of Euroscepticism in this country that causes a lack of engagement with the EU and a tacit acceptance by all mainstream politicians that we cannot withdraw from the EU. It has left us in a half-way house. In many ways it is unsatisfactory. However, realistically it is the best that can be hoped for, and that should be accepted both by Daniel Hannan and his ilk and the federalist politicians of Europe - who also understand that the EU needs Britain badly, but can't, due to this fundamental difference in culture, understand why we are so hesitant about them.

So to conclude - the bizarre, offensive, ignorant and stupid remarks of M. Lellouche, in which he referred to the Tories new (let's face it, fudged) position on the EU as "autistic", something that will doubtless greatly upset those who have the misfortune to suffer from this condition, are born of a fatal lack of knowledge of his subject.

As long as mainstream EU politicians, the majority of whom, due to their shared history, are federalist, fail to grasp that the nuances of Britain's geographical and historical position mean it is inherently engaged with Europe and yet can never be federalist, we have a problem. The solution lies in educating these politicians as to our history and identity, not forgetting there are five distinct indigenous cultures in this country as well as a host of newly arrived ones from a large Empire we formerly ruled. It won't be easy. But it is worth doing, because if we can arrive at agreement, the potential rewards for all of us in terms of better relations, improved trade and freer movement of services are immense. Who's up for it?

The Lisbon Treaty

Had I been offered a vote on the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, I would have voted for it. Were I by some obscure constitutional process to be offered a vote on it now, I would vote against it.

The reason for my first stance was that Lisbon is essentially a rather harmless and ineffectual treaty that merely codifies what exists and - crucially - offers an exit clause to anyone who doesn't like what's on offer. It would finally have called the bluff of the Eurosceptic right (which would probably include me as a general rule) along the lines of, "OK, you don't like this arrangement, fine, go away, shoo, you don't have to stay." That would have been a Good Thing.

The reason for my altered stance is that the more I look at the ratification process, railroaded through over all objections, with a firm rejection by the Irish Republic ignored and overturned and the refusal to allow the people elsewhere, including here, any say at all, the more bizarre and stupid it seems. We've had dictators that are Fascist (Mussolini) Nazi (Hitler) Communist (Tito) Stalinist (Stalin) Theocratic (Cromwell, Schuschnigg) and merely hopelessly incompetent (Erich Honecker) in Europe over the past 350 or so years. All have been guilty of acts of corruption, torture, repression, murder and in the case of Hitler, Stalin and arguably Cromwell, genocide. This is the first time I can ever think of that someone has tried to put together a bureaucratic dictatorship - or at any rate, the first time they've succeeded. Heaven only knows what they'll get up to.

The reason I call this a bureaucratic dictatorship is simple. We are now effectively run by a deeply-entrenched elite who show acute nervousness of democratic will, worse than ever the British aristocracy was. They refuse to tolerate criticism. They tightly control the process of appointments - no European official has ever been elected. They wield immense power over all our lives, now including our lifestyles (in the name of fighting global warming) our foreign policy (in the same) and our military (in the name of enhanced co-operation to ensure a full participation in world affairs by the European nations - translated, that means so we can act the bully more effectively). However you hack it, that's a dictatorship. All it lacks is a dictator.

Thankfully, with Blair's likely removal from the race, it does not seem as though that will be coming any time soon. But this democratic deficit is a genuine worry. You can't say no to these European elites. If you do, they'll keep asking until they get the right answer - as they have in Ireland, twice. Why? Is it the money, the power, the drink, the drugs, the dancing girls? Is it the certainty that nobody will dare prosecute them for their crimes - and many commissioners have very dodgy pasts (Giscard springs to mind, as does Chretien, and Butiglioni)?

And there is a reason why this is a worry. With every step that further ignores and perverts the popular will - not just here, but Europe wide - we move closer to the day when the strain will cause a rupture. Twice in the last hundred years, Europe has torn itself apart in appalling, prolonged and bloody conflict. The European Union, in its original form, was designed to prevent a repeat. Its current antics are, however, making civil strife between the rich West and the impoverished South-East, the pro-American north and the pro-South American south, the anti-Russian North-East and the Russians-aren't-nice-guys-but-we-need-them West, or even some combination of all the lot together, not just likely but damn near certain. Perhaps the bureaucratic dictators and their apologists are so blind they cannot see it. For myself, I'm starting to wonder about that job in Australia.

Breaking the banks

I first heard of this plan to "break up" the banks yesterday. I thought I must be hearing things wrongly, because it seemed to be the sort of thing that only a pure lunatic would come up with. However, it seems it is a genuine plan, and that means I have to assume that while Professor Nutt has been sacked, the senior Civil Servants at the Treasury, the European Commission and the Competition Commission and the FSA are all in private sympathy with his aims. After all, they must all be on neat cannabis at the very least.

The plan takes a fourfold structure:

1) Northern Rock is to be broken up. I quote:

The restructure will strengthen Northern Rock’s capital position and enable the bank to return to the mortgage market and support the economic recovery as by proposed by the Government in February. Under the restructure, the back book of mortgages will be managed separately to Northern Rock’s other businesses.

This means, stripped of all the pompous waffle, that everything considered remotely profitable will be hived off and flogged. Everything that is certain to make a huge loss will remain in the public sector so we pay for it. No matter how you dress it up, that represents a certain loss for the taxpayer.

2) RBS sheds some assets - specifically, the RBS-branded branches in England, which will be sold as Williams and Glyn (who?) its insurance arms, and possibly the Citizens bank in the USA. The last two are sensible - assuming that a buyer could be found, as one could not before. The first one is not. 300 branches under a name everyone has forgotten? Pur-lease.

3) Lloyds gets shot of the C&G, as well as a variety of extraneous other things such as Lloyds TSB Scotland (which would leave them reliant on the Bank of Scotland north of the border) and this will really cause a chuckle - as the TSB brand! Has nobody noticed that that was merged with the Lloyds brand 15 years ago? Are all Lloyds branches to be rebranded as a result?

4) And what's the aim of all this? Yes, that's what's really funny! It's to create more competition in the High Street! Yes, the 164 C&G branches, 77 Northern Rock branches, 300 RBS England branches and 187 TSB (Lloyds TSB Scotland) branches will compete effectively with Santander's 1286 branches (soon all to be rebranded) Lloyds/HBOS's 2,500 remaining branches, HSBC's 1600 branches, RBS/NatWest's 2,000 remaining branches and Barclay's 1800 branches. Even more gloriously, Santander is apparently planning to buy RBS's operations in England, which will cause them to have about the same number of branches as NatWest, Lloyds, Barclays, and HSBC. You couldn't make it up.

There's some even crazier stuff out there. For instance, this move is thought to be in order to encourage other players from outside the current crop of banks to come in (although Santander have probably already torpedoed that). These may include American banks thrilled at slipping in on the cheap - for these will be firesales at rock bottom prices - or even Tesco and Virgin. Great. We got into this mess because bankers didn't know what they were doing. I know, let's get out of it by hiring people who have even less idea of what they're doing. Tescos can't even run their supermarkets properly - the food is of poor quality and overpriced, the staff are badly trained, the stores are laid out in an inefficient fashion. They would be just as bad at banking - probably worse. As for Virgin, does the phrase "Cross Country Trains" have any resonance? The premise is beyond insane. There is no word for what it is.

The reason I'm really furious though is because there is a childishly simple solution to the problem. It would create two major new banks, independently run - no overseas players or second-rate supermarkets or failed transport operators. The Halifax and NatWest still have their banking licences. Why not just float them on the Stock Exchange again as independent companies in a good old-fashioned demerger? The Halifax might have to wait a few years, until its mortgage book is stabilised, but NatWest could be flogged right now - there would be buyers.

That would open up the market enormously. By all means accept that RBS should be broken up further - it is, to all intents and purposes, a failed institution. Perhaps its English arm could be merged with Northern Rock and the C&G to create a medium-sized bank with a national reach (with a flying pig logo, perhaps). Lloyds could still flog its current Scottish arm, and keep the Bank of Scotland as a sop to the bullying that went on over the HBOS takeover, that saw them bounced into something they did not want to do.

But the model put forward will do nothing for competition. It's mere window dressing, a sop to the EU, a bone to those, such as John Redwood, who've been howling for years that the banks were far too big and were throttling competition while at the same time riding for a fall. It's madness. It's not even madness with a method. But what can you expect from a government that time and again has lied, cheated, forged, swindled and bullied its way through power, from dodgy mortgages and unethical business dealings by Ministers, reaching an apogee with Iraq, to last year's "scorched earth" budget? Whether David Cameron is a knight in shining armour is doubtful. But surely, at the very least, he can't fail to be far better.